Barry had brought Chinese food to the apartment. Chelsea had been resting against him on the couch afterward, with his arms looped around her stomach, when he’d said, “Did that k’ung pao chicken disagree with you?”
“No,” she’d said. “Why?”
“Because something just kicked me.”
“It’s them! The kids!”
Through her maternity T-shirt, they’d been able to see the twins rippling against the surface. Barry had kept his hands there, his face bright with wonder, for nearly half an hour until the babies finally nestled down for a nap.
On the radio, the song ended. Chelsea removed her key and lumbered out.
Invigorated by the crisp December air, she reached the first floor of the converted house without strain. As she contemplated the final staircase, the elderly landlady, Liv Olsen, emerged from her ground-floor unit.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” said Mrs. Olsen. “It’s nearly the middle of the month and I still haven’t received the second half of the rent.”
“I’m so sorry!” The kindly landlady had allowed Chelsea to pay her half on time, with the understanding that Starshine would pay her share within two weeks. “I thought my roommate had taken care of it.”
“I tried to speak to her, but she was with friends and I guess she didn’t hear me,” Mrs. Olsen said.
Chelsea felt terrible. “If she doesn’t have the money, I’ll pay you.”
“I know.” The lady smiled at her. “Now, don’t strain yourself. Mothers need to conserve energy.”
“I’ll be fine.” Chelsea didn’t have to struggle with the stairs this time. She stormed up them in a fine temper.
Although Starshine always paid eventually, her lateness was annoying. Chelsea supposed that, conditioned by years of looking after her clueless parents, she’d shown more patience than she should have.
As she opened the door, a tortured rock ’n’ roll version of “White Christmas” slammed into her ears. At the same time, she gazed in horrified awe at the green-and-red crepe paper draped across the couch, end tables, floor and chairs. It looked as if someone had toilet-papered the place in the holiday spirit.
In one corner, silver tinsel dripped from the world’s most pathetic Christmas tree. It appeared to have fallen off a truck and been run over a few times before it was rescued.
What really caught her attention, however, were two inflatable mattresses lying on the living-room floor. They gave her a bad feeling.
“Starshine?” Chelsea called.
“Here!” Her roommate hurried out of the kitchen. “We were just fixing lunch.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“Well…”
A scraggly-haired young man and a small redhead popped out behind her. “Yo!” said the man. “We’re your new roommates.”
“Excuse me?”
Starshine steered Chelsea away from the others. “I figured they could help me make the rent.”
“Help you make the rent?” She wished she could go outside, come back in and find the place normal. Please, let this be a bad dream.
Starshine drew herself up defensively. “Well, you’re going to have two babies. That makes three of you for only half the rent. Bob and Lucy needed a place to crash, so they can help pay my share of the rent.”
Chelsea supposed Starshine did have a point about the twins sharing their apartment, but inviting two strangers to move in seemed cheeky. In any case, Mrs. Olsen still hadn’t been paid. “Speaking of rent, your half is overdue.”
“Oh, really?”
“You must have collected some money from Bob and Lucy before you let them bring their stuff here, right?” Chelsea asked. “Just give it to Mrs. Olsen.”
“Uh, sure.” Starshine backed away. “I mean, I’m not good at business, but we’ll work this out. Gee, I just remembered, we’ve got a rehearsal.”
“You found work?” That was a hopeful sign.
Since the Easter Bunny show ended, Starshine had worked sporadically as a waitress. She frequently skipped work to attend parties where she hoped to make important contacts, with the result that she was usually unemployed in both fields.
“We got cast in an Equity waiver play,” said her roommate. “All three of us. Isn’t that great?”
Not in Chelsea’s opinion, since Equity waiver theaters didn’t pay actors. They put on showcase productions under a special arrangement with the actors’ union. “Mrs. Olsen has been more than patient.”
“Soon! Hey, guys, time to go!” In a flurry of farewells, Starshine and her two friends cleared out.
Chelsea went into the kitchen. She was not surprised to find her private food cabinet ajar. Someone had opened a can of sardines, which her parents had sent from their latest yacht stop in Spain, and eaten half of it.
Dirty dishes sat in the sink and a half-eaten omelette congealed in a pan on the stove. Chelsea visualized a more modern, pristine kitchen with all the dishes washed, the counter gleaming and the food put away.
It was Barry’s kitchen.
The feelings she’d been fighting for seven long months crystallized in one searing moment. True, she was scared of moving in with Barry, but despite the amount of time they’d been spending together, she hadn’t let him take over her life. Why worry about that now?
As if she’d been planning the steps for weeks, Chelsea swung into action. She packed her good clothes and left the ratty ones in a heap with a note, For the Poor. She cleared out the bathroom, took her favorite books, gathered her rodents’ cages and called the baby store to provide a different address for the furniture delivery.
On Monday, she would forward her mail. Starshine and her roommies could keep Chelsea’s meager stock of food. Right now, she just wanted out.
She left a polite note giving her forwarding address and phone number. Downstairs, she knocked on Mrs. Olsen’s door and explained about the new arrangements. “You can keep my half of the deposit to pay for the rest of this month’s rent. I don’t want you to get stuck.”
“Give me your address. I’ll mail it to you when I collect from Starshine.” A steely glint belied the landlady’s sweet demeanor. “My son’s a lawyer. I’ll get Bob and Lucy’s signatures on the dotted line and their money in hand, believe me.”
Chelsea would have hugged her if not for the fact that, at present, she was so large she could barely get close enough to shake hands. “Thanks for being so understanding,” she said, and wrote down the information.
When she reached the car, it occurred to her that she should call Barry before she arrived lock, stock and rodents. She’d never acquired a cell phone, though, and she couldn’t face marching up all those stairs to make a call.
It didn’t matter. He’d be glad to see her.
“I’M GOING TO CANCEL the newspaper until your father leaves,” Andrew told Barry across the Mentons’ table. “He and my mother disagree about every item.”
“That’s a good idea,” Barry said. “If he can’t get his hands on a paper, maybe he’ll break down and stay with me. I don’t know why he persists in this idea that Chelsea’s going to move in.”
“There’s no need to talk about me as if I weren’t here,” Lew said from the other end of the table, where he and Grace had been glaring daggers at each other since the meal began.
The four of them were eating Saturday brunch in the breakfast room, a charming nook with a view of the Mentons’ back lawn, flower garden and pool. The rest of the family was out: Cindi had taken Angela to get her hair trimmed for tomorrow’s gala, and William was on a trip with his Scout troop.
Two days ago, Lew had arrived without warning. He wanted to see Angela dance again, he’d claimed, denying any nefarious intentions regarding tomorrow night’s big event.
Barry hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since. He worried that his father, whom the Mentons had generously agreed to house, was driving them crazy. And, when he dozed off, his mind filled with pies flying through the air, smacking a pompous tenor in the k
isser as pandemonium erupted at the gala.
Fiorello Magnifico’s plan to nationalize sales of Army surplus goods and old government vehicles had gained momentum. Werner Waldheim was reported to have found a congressional sponsor for the Government-Owned Outlets Promotion act, known to its critics as GOOP.
“I just want to make one more comment about an item in this morning’s newspaper,” Aunt Grace said, ignoring her son’s warning glance. “If you don’t care about our furry friends, who give us so much love, then you don’t have much of a heart.”
Her remark, Barry assumed, referred to an article about a luxurious animal shelter with custom exercise equipment and a spa, being built at public expense. She and Lew had been squabbling about it intermittently.
“Because I don’t believe in bleeding the taxpayers doesn’t mean I don’t care about animals,” said Lew. “Who do you think persuaded the Blink City Council to back down on taxing cats?”
“How did you manage that?” Barry asked.
“I announced at a council meeting that since the junkyard had to evict its cat population, I would be too busy finding homes for them to hold my usual flu-shot clinic,” his father said. “Of course, I would vaccinate people who really need it, but able-bodied adults like our city council would have to take their chances.”
Barry smiled. “So they changed their minds?”
“In a New York minute,” said Lew.
“If we had socialized medicine, you couldn’t pull that kind of blackmail,” Grace said.
“Doctors aren’t slaves,” Lew said. “I could move elsewhere and leave Blink without any physician at all. Let them socialize that!”
Andrew groaned. “I’ve been listening to this kind of squabbling for two days.”
“Dad, come home with me,” Barry said.
Lew shook his head. “I don’t want to get in the way. That girl’s going to come to her senses.”
“You hardly know her!”
“Trust me on this one, son,” said his father.
“Let him stay here,” Grace said suddenly.
The two younger men stared at her in surprise. “Why?” Andrew asked.
“Because if he rides to the gala with us, we can make sure he isn’t carrying a pie,” she said. “Oh, yes, I know all about your felonious tendencies, Lewis Cantrell. I have my sources.”
For once, Barry’s father couldn’t muster a quick reply. He merely harrumphed and dug into his waffles.
Barry felt as if he’d been watching his father argue with his mother instead of his aunt. Both bull-headed, both certain that their approach was the only one that could save the world. Neither Lew nor Meredith—nor her sister, Grace—would ever willingly admit to not having all the answers.
He’d been like that, too, he supposed, until Chelsea got pregnant and he realized he had to give her free rein or lose her. To his surprise, beneath her flaky exterior, she’d turned out to be a steady person. She never missed a doctor’s appointment or a day’s work, even when she was experiencing one of her many digestive misadventures.
Still, he was glad she hadn’t moved in with him yet. He needed to separate his father from the Mentons. They deserved peace in their own home.
“I can keep an eye on my dad,” he said. “Actually, there are fewer places to hide a pie in my condo than in your house.”
“True,” Grace admitted.
Lew shot his son a wary glance. It occurred to Barry that his father might already have hidden a pie on the premises. In addition to the industrial-size refrigerator in the kitchen, there was a regular one in the pool house. Perhaps some of the family members had small fridges in their rooms, as well.
“I’m going upstairs to pack your bags,” he said. “You’re coming with me.”
“You can’t just uproot an old man.” Lew was looking guiltier by the minute.
“Sixty is not old,” said Grace, who was, if Barry recalled correctly, three years older than his father. “It’s the fault of your personality, not your age, that your mental processes have atrophied.”
“You two sound like quarreling children,” muttered Andrew.
“She said it, not me!” Lew flared.
“Come on, Dad,” Barry said. “You’re coming home with me now. Chelsea isn’t going to change her mind overnight, and besides, I’ve got two tickets to a UCLA football game this afternoon. I was planning to ask Andrew but…”
“Don’t worry about it,” his cousin said. “I’ll gladly make the sacrifice for my mother’s sake.”
Lew’s jaw thrust forward. Before he could utter another word, however, Barry heard female voices and then Angela darted into the room. “Like it?” she asked, pointing to her softly curled hair.
“You look gorgeous.” Lew stood up. “My son’s dragging me over to his place.”
“Really?” Angela frowned. “But…”
“I’ll be there to see you dance,” he said. “Maybe I can come backstage and wish you luck beforehand.”
The girl brightened. “Okay!”
Barry wondered whether this conversation had a subtext he wasn’t grasping. If so, however, he couldn’t figure it out.
“I’m glad you’re being reasonable, Dad,” he said. Grace nodded tightly. Andrew beamed. Even Cindi, who had just arrived, looked relieved. “Let’s go.”
THE SPACES in front of Barry’s condo were occupied by a car that looked like Chelsea’s and a panel truck marked Kids’ Home Store. “See? She’s here,” said Lew as they spotted her on the steps, waving at them. “Now take me back to Grace’s house. I promise to be nice to the old witch.”
What rotten timing, Barry thought. He’d wanted Chelsea to move in, but did it have to be today? “Resign yourself, Dad. You’re staying right here.”
“Next time I visit L.A., I’m renting a car,” his father grumbled. “Then I can go wherever I want.”
“Next time you come, Fiorello Magnifico won’t be singing at the theater,” Barry said. “You won’t need to sneak around.”
“Hmmph,” said Lew.
12
BARRY’S WELCOME wasn’t exactly what Chelsea had hoped for.
True, he said he was glad to see her. He even showed interest in the furniture, which had arrived earlier than she expected, and helped her put the rodents in the utility room. He also gave her a spare house key without being asked.
Still, those brown eyes seemed darker than Chelsea remembered. Brooding. And Barry’s mouth, which usually quirked into a grin at the sight of her, was rimmed by worry lines.
Maybe she’d waited too long to change her mind. Maybe he’d backed off on the come-live-with-me issue because he’d grown satisfied with a low-key relationship.
Chelsea had the baby furniture placed in a single room so she could watch over the twins simultaneously. And so that if, one of these days, she had to move out again, they’d be used to sharing a room.
After the delivery men departed, Barry took her aside in the dining room. “I’m afraid Lew’s planning to disrupt the gala tomorrow night,” he said in a low voice. “Aunt Grace has done a lot for me. I’d feel personally responsible if anything went wrong.”
“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Chelsea promised.
“He’s an appealing old scamp,” Barry warned. “He might win you over.”
Maybe the old Chelsea, she conceded silently. The new one, pumped with maternal hormones, preferred building a safe nest to thumbing her nose at the world.
A few minutes ago when she saw Barry walk up, recessive cling-to-him instincts had leaped from their hiding places. They must have been lurking deep inside where even DNA researchers couldn’t find them.
Now here he stood, the man of her dreams, steady as a knight ready to do battle. Chelsea, who could barely maintain her balance these days, wanted nothing more than to lean on him. She certainly wasn’t going to help Lew create problems.
“I’ll make sure he doesn’t mess up the gala,” she said. “I’ll threaten to go into labor if he tries anything.�
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“He’s a doctor,” Barry said. “He knows you can’t control those things by willpower.”
“Try me,” she said.
Barry’s expression warmed. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me, too,” she said.
They touched each other, a hand on an arm, a stroke of the cheek. Not getting too close, which would have required advanced engineering techniques or possibly the use of a crane, given Chelsea’s girth.
Still, the contact soothed and reassured her. Maybe he cared about her after all.
Or maybe he didn’t. Why did these ancient hormonal urges have to make her so darn insecure?
“Help yourself to whatever’s in the kitchen,” Barry said. “I’m taking Dad to the UCLA game.”
He’d invited Chelsea earlier. Unable to picture herself sitting through a football game in her condition, she’d reluctantly declined.
Lew came downstairs. “I’m done unpacking. What’s next?”
“I guess we’re ready for the game,” Barry said.
His father gave Chelsea a kiss on the cheek. “Sure, although I’m surprised you can tear yourself away from this beauty. Gee, I wonder whether the refreshment stands at UCLA sell pies.”
“They wouldn’t dare,” Barry said.
“It was just a thought.”
The two departed. Lew was going to spend the entire afternoon teasing his son, Chelsea could see.
She fixed herself lunch and then took a nap on the bed. Barry’s scent cushioned her to sleep.
Awake at last, she wandered into the bathroom. While washing her face, she spotted a faded note taped to the mirror.
It said, “You are Chelsea’s friend. You have no right to change her.”
Her heart thudded. So that’s how Barry had held his domineering instincts in check all these months. He’d purposely distanced himself in order to keep her as his friend.
Well, she’d changed. Maybe it was the raging hormones, or the impending birth of a pair of helpless infants, or the insidious work of love. In any case, she wanted more. Much more.
Maybe even to be…a doctor’s wife.
To Chelsea’s astonishment, the thought failed to send panic shooting through her. So what if she had to sacrifice a bit of independence? Being loved by Barry would be an adventure of a different kind, that was all.
The Doc's Double Delivery & Down-Home Diva Page 12
